Excitement and chaos marked the inauguration of weekend charter flights yesterday as dozens of charter flights landed and departed at airports around the country.
The first charter flight leaving from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport was a China Airlines flight to Shanghai, which departed at 7:30am, while the first flight departing from Taipei Songshan Airport was Uni Air’s flight to Shanghai, which left at 8am.
Meanwhile, a China Southern Airlines plane with more than 100 Chinese tourists among the 258 passengers aboard landed at the Taoyuan airport at 8:05am, making it the first weekend cross-strait charter flight to arrive from China.
The first one to land at Songshan was a Xiamen Air flight, which touched down at 8:30am after an 80-minute trip from Xiamen City in Fujian Province. The flight carried the first group of Chinese tourists arriving at Songshan Airport.
At both airports, two arrays of fire engines used their tenders to form a “whitewater tunnel” to welcome the inaugural flights as they taxied along the runways.
Taiwanese airlines had all prepared inauguration ceremonies to greet passengers boarding the inaugural flights. They were welcomed not only by dancing lions and Aboriginal performances, but also by throngs of local and international media.
Government officials, airlines’ ground staff, travel agents, performers, reporters and photographers turned Songshan Airport into a chaotic site.
Shao Qiwei (邵琪偉), director of the China National Tourism Administration, was among the first batch of Chinese tourists to take the maiden weekend charter flight to Taiwan yesterday. Shao, who is visiting Taiwan in his capacity as president of the Beijing-based Cross-Strait Tourism Exchange Association, was mobbed by reporters when he appeared in the crowded airport lobby.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) and Master Hsing Yun (星雲法師) were also invited to attend the ceremony hosted by China Eastern Airlines for its first flight between Nanjing and Songshan. Nanjing became one of the Chinese airports offering cross-strait charter flights after Wu’s visit to China in May.
Wu said he hoped that the weekend charter flight service could gradually evolve into regular charter flights.
Ho Huei-ping (何惠萍) was waiting to board Uni Air’s flight at Songshan Airport when she spoke with the Taipei Times. She and her daughter were going to visit her husband, who has been working in Shanghai for about two years.
“It used to take him almost a day to come home,” she said. “The previous time he left Shanghai at 5am, but was stranded in Hong Kong for hours because of rain and he did not arrive [in Taiwan] until 11pm. Now it only takes only about three hours.”
Wang Chi (王崎), a Chinese tourist who took the Xiamen Air flight, has transited flights via Taiwan several times in the past.
“We just want to see some of the natural scenery in Taiwan,” he said, adding that Taiwan was a must-see place for Chinese tourists.
A real estate agent based in Xiamen, Wang said he had been watching Taiwanese cable TV news regularly and probably understood Taiwanese politics better than some Taiwanese did.
Jokin Laspiur Lopez, a manager of Mondragon Corp, is from Spain and works in the company’s office in Shanghai. Having spent a week in Taiwan on a business trip, Lopez booked a flight with Shanghai Airlines that took off from Songshan at 1pm.
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